Sri Lanka News

A small Monorail train from Fort to Battaramulla

A project had been launched to build a small train also called a Monorail from Fort to Battaramulla. An agreement was signed with a Korean company last week.
Many countries in the world are using Monorails which help people to travel from one place to another without getting stuck due to traffic jams. It had been named “MONORAIL” as only one rail is used for this. It runs with electricity and there are ones that run with diesel as well.

There aren’t conductors in these trains and it works automatically when a card is used which could be bought from the station by paying for it.
There are taped recordings to announce where the train will be stopped. It will take the passengers from town to town without any delay avoiding traffic.
It will cost Rs 6500 million for the first step of this project which will be from Fort to Battaramulla and the next step is to be from Moratuwa, Maradana and Kaduwela. This had been undertaken by the Korean company called “ƒ”¹…”Gramp Space’ with the support and assistance of Katubedda, Moratuwa University.

This is big white elephant,this is going to be big wast,this is not for sri lanka,how many million of pepole going hungry each day,please improv pepole lavelyhod,befor you decorate you’re house,have food on you’re table.

Could you have envisaged rickshaws changing into trishaws. When three wheelers first came a lot of backward people opined that they will kill taxis, too dangerous, not suitable for hilly roads etc. Some of these JVPers (can tell from spelling) never had and never will have the capacity to see the distant future. But they are good at misleading young minds.

Where have they used monorails successfully?.
I have a feeling this project is going to be another white elephant. I would like to request Defence Secy to start implementing atleast one elevated road (like what we see in Thailand and Singapore) to ease the congestion between Battaramulla (starting from Malabe) and Borella during his tenure as head of UDA.

Lorenzo,
You are correct yet again !
The “Monorail” does’t tell you much. Only thing it can tell you is is cannot be too wide because of stability isssues ( you make it stable by additing something then become too heavy and uneconomical)
Therefore it cannot carry big crowds. It should normally be a Light Rail, and handllled delcately.
It cannot be suitable to Sri lanka, unless two big bouncers per train is employed per train to keep people out. Or else li can be Luxury travel to tourists. They are used sucsessfully in Singaapore, Japan ,Malaysia and more but cannot be a way of Mass Transit.
As you can see in the pictures,
IT LOOKS DAMN STUPID ! Huge structure to cary a minute vehicle.
You don’t have to be an expert to understand this. Only FOOLS like Ben Silva and Chandrasoma will argue about this truth, which is proven in the picutres above.

This is where you get it wrong !
Wise cannot be corrupt. They an unable to make wealth by these means.
All corrupt are FOOLS. Inteligence has nothing to do with FOOLISHnese, but wise are always inteligent.

Before building a sophisticated Monorail Transportation System, we must assure a RELIABLE SUPPLY of ELECTRICITY to run it!

The UNRELIABILITY of Electric Power Supply in Sri Lanka is ABSOLUTELY UNACCEPTABLE!

It is LUDICROUS that after nearly a decade of the present Government being in Power, Minister Champika Ranawaka blames previous Governments (see below) for the failure to assure the citizens of Sri Lanka a reliable Electric Supply!

Even a Strong Supporter of this Patriotic Government like me simply cannot stomach these lame excuses!

What is becoming patently clear is the absolute INCOMPETENCE of the leaders in the Power Ministry and the Ceylon Electricity Board.

FORWARD PLANNING of electricity production, the effective management of LABOR RELATIONS, and the enforcement of laws against the wholesale theft of electricity by criminal consumers, are in PATHETIC DISARRAY.

PLANNING should include anticipating periodic shortages in hydroelectric power production due to changing weather patterns and rainfall. It should not be an unanticipated calamity …. everytime!

Why is the Power Ministry dilly-dallying on anticipating these events and the persistently rising price of imported fossil fuels, and not harnessing Solar and Wind renewable power supplies on a large scale?

WE NEED THAT TO BE DONE IMMEDIATELY, so we can benefit from the bountiful renewable energies Sri Lanka is endowed by Mother nature.

The recurring problems besetting the newly constructed MASSIVE Thermal Power Plants is quite DISHEARTENING and constitutes an APPALLING waste of PUBLIC FUNDS.

HEADS should ROLL, irrespective of their positions. If those in charge cannot make the system work, FIRE THEM NOW and open the doors to those who can.

These interminable EXCUSES MUST END! This is NOT Rocket Science but the deployment of TRIED and TESTED Technologies.

These INCOMPENTENTS are HOLDING BACK the Progress of Sri Lanka towards its goal of becoming the New Wonder of Asia within this decade.

More than that: they are making us look like INCOMPETENT FOOLS to the entire world; Fools totally incapable of managing this CRITICAL SECTOR of our economy.

Aug 11, Colombo: Power and Energy Minister of Sri Lanka Champika Ranawaka says that the power crisis in the country would further increase if the monsoon rains do not commence by mid-September.

Ranawaka has said that a continuous power supply could not be provided to the consumers if the monsoons fail next month.

He has explained that the water levels of all main reservoirs have dropped drastically affecting the hydropower generation.

Generation of hydropower from Victoria and Randenigala reservoirs would have to be stopped if an adequate rainfall does not take place in the catchment areas in the next few days, the Minister alerted.

Since the shutdown of the Lakvijaya thermal power plant in Norochcholai on August 08 due to a mechanic failure, the hydropower generation has been raised to supply 27.7 percent of the power demand depleting the reservoir storage to 20.0 percent.

According to Ranawaka, the thermal power generation in the country is not sufficient to meet the current demand.

The Minister blamed the failures of the past administrations to envisage a possible power crisis in future and take necessary steps to address such an eventuality.

Instead of spending money on fossil energy plants dependent on imported fuels, Sri Lanka should increase its WIND AND SOLAR capacities deployed in multiple-use forms that do not displace other uses of land and environmental resources.

Countries like Brazil can insulate themselves from rising energy prices by using their vast lands to produce biofuels like sugar-cane-based ethanol. In contrast, Sri Lanka has limited densely populated land that cannot be devoted to such energy crops.

We need to deploy renewable energybproduction methods that make dual-use of land resources such as wind-turbines in tea-estates and offshore, and roof-top solar farms on individual building roofs … however small. Every bit will help. We must instill the concept of energy self-sufficiency in the minds of our people.

Because only a small fraction of the existing on-demand generation capacity can be met by these transient fluctuating energy sources without destabilizing the power grid, Sri Lanka should also focus on developing ENERGY STORAGE plants.

FIRST, pumped water storage hydroelectric power plants is the low-hanging fruit in meeting that need for energy storage in Sri Lanka.

Unlike once-through hydroelectric power generation that wastes water needed for other uses during droughts, if the water is pumped to and fro between reservoirs at high and low elevations in a stored energy cycle, no net water needs to be released from power generation to flow to the sea, thus conserving the net water used for drinking and agricultural uses.

SECOND, Sri Lanka can develop Hydrogen gas based systems for storing renewable energy and producing power, thus removing the current system-stability related limits on the percentage of power that can be derived from transient forms of renewable energy, such as WIND and SOLAR.

In such a hydrogen-based energy storage scheme, electricity produced by wind and solar plants can be used to produce Hydrogen by electrolysis of water. The produced Hydrogen gas can be later be on-demand to power non-polluting fuel cells that produce electricity and water as the only byproducts.

If the GOSL is truly visionary, it should be looking forward to the future use of Hydrogen as a transportation fuel in Hydrogen powered fuel-cell vehicles, thus displacing oil imported for transportation purposes.

Gradual transformation of Sri Lanka’s transportation vehicles to electric vehicles powered by electrochemical batteries or fuel cells should be an important part of Sri Lanka’s strategy goal for attaining energy independence.

The produced hydrogen gas can be stored as a compressed gas, adsorbed on various metal hydrides from which the gas can be released by mild heating, by hydrogenating various hydrocarbon gases to a higher state, or less efficiently by liquifying the gas to cryogenic liquid form.

Is ANYBODY in the Government of Sri Lanka strategizing in these ways to make Sri Lanka self-sufficient in energy to support a vibrant economy?

Sri Lanka has doubled its wind power generation capacity with the addition of three new parks, according to the Power and Energy Ministry.

Three farms of 10 megawatts each were connected to the grid last week, ministry spokesman Dhanushka Ramanayaka said by phone from Colombo. Sri Lanka’s total power generation capacity is 3,120 megawatts.

The plants, located in Puttalam district in northwestern Kaplitiya, were built at a cost of 7.2 billion rupees ($54.6 million) and will sell their power to the state-run Sri Lanka Electricity Board.

Sri Lanka has set a target of getting 20 percent of its power from renewable sources by 2020, including 400 megawatts of wind capacity. It plans to add another 10 megawatts of wind by the end of the year.

The project owners are Daily Life Renewable Pvt., Nirmalapura Wind Power Pvt. and PowerGen Lanka Pvt., Ramanayaka said. PowerGen was formerly owned by India’s Orient Green Power Co. (OGPL), which sold its Sri Lanka unit last month to Colombo-based Windforce Pvt., according to a July 26 company filing.

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